Christmas time for humans comes at a time which is also special for Small Bears. As we reach the shortest day and longest night of the year, we think of our wild cousins, especially those who have to survive the winter by hibernating, who we wish safe sleeps until the spring.
It's also when we hear from many of our Bear friends, with cards and little gifts, and of course we send cards and treats to some of our friends. We have made some bear-sized bunting out of last year's Christmas cards this year and hope our pals can use it to decorate their Bear Baskets.
Not all of the Hug are at home this year. Tunstall Bear, who has always dreamt of being an airline pilot and seeing the world, is in Australia this Christmas!
Tunstall got the chance to travel to California with our friend Hattie the Otter, and then on to Victoria State in Australia with Oliver Bear, who happened to be at LA X airport at the same time as Hattie and her humans. To help him with his journey, Tour Guide Ted organised a suitcase and passport for him, and Hanley took his photograph for it.
Polar took Tunstall Bear for a special journey around Stoke-on-Trent to remind him of some of the special places there, and they bought Potteries presents for him to take to his friends. There was an exhibition in the museum called "Around the World in 80 Dolls" which was useful as Tunstall could ask them about the countries they came from.
After a final visit to his home town of Tunstall (which is the furthest north of the six towns of Stoke-on-Trent), we had a special tea with all of the bears, Old Bunny and Nutley Squirrel. The next day Tunstall was coming with me to Southampton. Grandad Polar (Polar's dad) was in hospital at the time and we were going to see him before meeting Hattie.
Hospital visiting was afternoons only, so Polar took us to look around her old home town in the morning. We saw the Bargate and parts of the old walls, and watched some of the boats in the docks, and then we caught the bus up to the hospital to tell Grandad Polar all about where we had been.
We told him about Tunstall's upcoming trip to America and Australia, and about our sight-seeing in Southampton, and we gave him hugs.
The next morning we went to Winchester to meet Hattie the Otter and "Her", Hattie's human guardian, and our friends the Berkshire Bears with their human guardian who we call Gecko.
Tunstall was very excited about his journey, but very nervous too. He almost decided not to go after all, until the Berkshire Bears introduced him to a tiny little aviator bear called Amy, who wanted to go flying as well and needed a bigger bear to look after her. Tunstall was also reassured that Hattie was a very kind and sensible otter, who made him feel safe and promised to look after him. I still felt very sad when it was time to leave him, although it cheered me up a little when I saw that Winchester had a traffic bollard decorated like one of Clarice Cliff's "Bizarre" pottery pieces, as I knew Hanley Bear would be delighted.
Hattie and her humans looked after Tunstall very well during his visit to California. He had adventures including visits to national parks, riding on streetcars and going to music festivals. They had a successful rendezvous with Oliver Bear at the airport too, so Tunstall flew on to Australia with him and has been enjoying even more adventures there, including going to a concert in Melbourne by Mr Paul McCartney.
We were thrilled when we got a Christmas card from him this week. We guessed it wasn't from any of our UK or European friends because it had tropical birds putting up Christmas lights on the front. There was a super message from Tunstall, who is still having a marvellous time. We are sure he will have lots to tell us when he comes home, but we don't know when that will be yet, as there are plans for more adventures in Australia.
He might even see if another Bear friend will invite him to visit on his way back to the UK!
Another member of our hug who was away from home this autumn is now back with us. Huddlesford went to help the Lichfield and Hatherton Canals Restoration Trust again, joining them in September for the Heritage Gathering at "his" junction.
This is a very special event with lots of vintage narrowboats, cars, lorries, tractors and traction engines and we had been hoping to go, but Polar had booked a special holiday for us that clashed with it.
Hanley Bear went to Lichfield with Huddlesford, visiting the Staffordshire Regimental Museum while they were in that area. The Bears enjoyed their visit, although it always makes us sad that humans have wars and fight each other. They are not as wise as bears.
Hanley said it was a very good museum for small bears, as there is a woodland walk to enjoy once you have gone through the scary replica trench, and some military vehicles that small bears can climb on.
He and Huddlesford also paid their respects to a mascot from the regiment who shared a name with a dear old bear friend of ours, before meeting Mrs Christine from LHCRT, who looks after Huddles when he goes on his work placements, at Huddlesford Junction.
This weekend, Hanley, Endon and I went to Lichfield with our humans to collect Huddlesford to bring him home for Christmas. We found there were already quite a lot of bears in the city - I guess they were visiting friends and doing their Christmas shopping.
Polar and Grizzly had arranged to meet Mrs Christine and Huddlesford at the Cathedral. We all arrived outside at the same time, which was very lucky!
We bears had not been there before and we thought that it was a wonderful building. It has three spires and lots of little figures carved on the West Front but, because it is over 700 years old and is made from quite a soft red sandstone, there is usually some restoration work going on somewhere (this time it was to the main spire).
Mrs Christine had suggested meeting there because the annual Christmas Tree Festival was taking place and LHCRT had decorated a tree for it. There are dozens of trees, decorated by local schools, businesses and charities, and they are all very pretty.
As soon as we were reunited with Huddlesford and allowed out of our Bear Bags, we bears went to explore. Huddles found a tree sponsored by St Giles Hospice, where he was once a charity fundraising bear (we know this because he has their name on his right back paw), but at first we couldn't find the LHCRT one.
Then we realised that there were trees along both sides of the cathedral! About half way up along the south side we found it, with Ogley Bear from LHCRT looking after it. It was very cleverly decorated with a long, blue ribbon which represented the canals, and this had little narrowboats on it and lift bridges over it.
And there were sign posts for the country parks and walking trails, and even an LHCRT bauble. "The humans have all worked very hard on our tree," said Ogley. "I hope we get lots of votes in the competition!"
That reminded us that Polar had bought us a token each to vote for our favourite tree, so we climbed up to the little box where the tokens go in and all voted for the LHCRT one.
There was a marvellous model narrowboat underneath the tree, which was just the right size for us bears to squeeze into, so Polar could take our photograph.
Then it was time for Huddlesford to say goodbye to Ogley Bear. "We'll have to get Polar to make you a sock jumper to keep you warm over the winter, pal," said Huddles. He asked if Ogley wanted to come with us to find somewhere to have cake, but Ogley said he was looking forward to hearing some hymns sung during the service that was about to start. We are sure that was very nice, but we were feeling hungry and, with our keen little noses, could smell lemon and blueberry cake in a small restaurant just down the hill. Luckily, our humans decided to have some lunch there so we got to celebrate our reunion with Huddlesford exactly as small bears like to do - with lots of cake.
And we are sure there will be even more cake when Tunstall comes home!
